And to think the actor who played the male lead in Sofia Coppola's 2023 "Priscilla" (grossing $33m worldwide against a $20m production cost), first learnt about the "existence" of a certain Elvis Presley a couple of days after watching the original, 2002 released "Lilo and Stich" at a cinema, as a then 5 yerar old kid.

The real thrill of watching anyone try to put a fun spin on an Elvis-type character is for the actor to do it while simultaneously reminding the viewer that the character is as likeable as the person being played on the screen. Kilmer's iration for Presley is more than obvious in "Top Secret" where he absolutely remind us, in every scene, why his obliteratation of the East Germans who are the zany characters being played on, in this 1984, pre fall of the Berlin wall wacky comedy, dovetails nicely with how Presley's 16 month stay in the then West with the US Army, arriving there a full 22 years before at the port of Bremerhaven, was as equally deadly, in his case vis a vis countless of East German high level official and of the media, most notably the East German Defense Minister Willi Stoph, who instantly labelled him " a means of seduction to make his country lose its principles in the midst of a possible atomic war, what would in turn lead to defections, as well as a tool of US imperialism bent on destroying the values of Communist youth". According to the then East German daily newspaper "Young World,", ( founded during the time the Soviet Union held a Sector of that city, and still operating as a far left pubication in the current Federal Republic of , Elvis Presley was labelled as "Public Enemy No. 1". RIP, Val Kilmer, we shall miss you and please tell Presley we all miss him as well.

The documentary is extremely well done. Its title is not "The life and sins of Elvis Presley", but "The return of the King: The fall and rise of Elvis Presley", meaning focussing on the events leading to the only moment when as far as Elvis is concerned, there was a rise following a fall, to be precise the year 1968. There was no fall prior to his being sent to the Army, his only fall being that which took place three years after his 1968 rise. After his death, his spirit has managed to garner what very few people in history have been able to accomplish, and that is a sort of afterlife which includes not just being talked about (anyone can have that as an attribute), but being memorialized, discussed, his birth and last resting places visited, EVERY DAY, to the tune of 23 million tourists since those venues were first opened to the public. He rests calmly in personal exhibits in 4 Presidential libraries, 1,234 biopgrahies in print, 34 filmed s of portions of, or general s of his life, let alone 100,000 references in written or filmed biograhies of other IMPORTANT people having zero to do with the world of entertainment. He is referenced in biographies of Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, Yuri Gagarin and Boris Yeltsin to name just a few. For a book, or a movie entitled "The sins of Elvis Presley", we must await for someone to dare lose the time and effort it will take when compared with the interest that silly notion will inflict in the minds of future generations and the reason is simple: his positive atttributes as an human firmly outshine his sins. Take it from Albert II, the head of a state which he and his family have ruled uninterruptedly for the last 700 or so years. " He was an extraordinary figure of his and our time. The generosity that he showed toward others is simply remarkable and I think it's these aspects of his character, his persona, that make him such a special person".